Landing
by RisingTwilight
Summary: They say it's the hardest part, but she can't fall forever. Zelette.


_I love Zelette so much. Which is why I really should clean up some of my other drabbles and flood the Tales of Symphonia page with them._

_ Fair warning, I have my own conception of Colette (and to some extent, Zelos), that might come across as Ooc. But you know, characters that spend the first part of the game smiling and deceiving their best friends as they march to their death tend to be a little deeper than people expect. _

_ This mostly takes place after the game ends, although I had a little fun with the chronology._

* * *

Well, she's got her whole life back now, and she has to figure out what she's going to _do _with it. She has to figure out how to live, freely, hopefully, without ending.

* * *

The first thing Colette does, after all the fighting and dying, the parties and celebrations, ceremonies and dances, the plans and the goodbyes, and oh yes the goodbyes, when she watched that hero boy she loved so much walk off with the _one who was not her_—the first real thing Colette does after their journey comes to an end is sleep.

She leaves Meltokio, flying on her own wings (_walk on your own two feet_) into the clouded blue sky, and by luck or fate or the will of a nonexistent Goddess, she finds herself back in Iselia. She wings her way into her room, which remains exactly the same as when she left it Before.

And then, she sleeps.

For a week, she lives in some kind of foggy, half-remembered place of light, in which she is finally, truthfully, home, and she is once again happy.

* * *

_But you can't go home again, and there will be no waking from this dream._

* * *

("How do we fix this?" she asks from across the table, her eyes unending blue locked to his, as the world they've ceased to be a part of swirls around them.

He just shakes his head mutely, as if they'd taken his voice too. His hair shimmers around him in a sunset halo.

And the food sits untouched in front of them.)

* * *

She was smiling when she said goodbye to all of them. Raine might have had her suspicions and Sheena might have thought she knew, but Colette is fully aware that there is only one person who understands, and he's not stepping up to the plate, so she will manage on her own.

(_manage_, of course, being a bit of an exaggeration, but, well, it works well enough.)

* * *

Because Zelos knows there's nothing to be fixed once it ends. Nothing.

(Nothing but the deep smoldering anger raging within the chest covered with a coldly gleaming crystal.)

He watches as _they_, the two, leave. He waves goodbye to the hero in proud red, just another one of the abandoned lambs of their band. Zelos knows as well as everyone (which Lloyd never is part of) that there really won't be a group without him, their center. Zelos knows that they will all fall apart, because he is no stranger to falling apart.

And _her_. She leaves with a little swirl of her pink bow, the ends trailing behind her like wings, so pretty, so feminine. By this he knows he's wrong, and all along he's been wrong. She looks back at him only once, with earthen eyes, strong eyes. They strike up against his eyes like sky, morning sky washed with greying sunlight.

"You have to grow up," she tells him.

She says this because she does not know the words she really means, and she expresses instead of says. Words are for those that are trapped in their own heads. She really means he must heal. But she doesn't know to say this, because she has never been broken, and her body was strong enough to fix itself. She does not know the elemental pain that must be endured in putting oneself back together.

(Her eyes have not seen horror, and so she cannot know that he has grown-he's grown far, far too fast. It's hard to cope with crippled perception.)

"The sky isn't real, Shee," he finds himself muttering, long after she's left him there, long after she's gone to find all the wonderful things the world has in store for her. "What are we supposed to do when the sky isn't real?"

* * *

Then one day, Colette wakes up, because she knows she can't pretend anymore, and her prayers haven't been answered, and life is still going on.

On that day, she says goodbye to Iselia, maybe forever. Because she knows she won't come back to it—can't come back to it—the same person.

It's time to fly.

* * *

(There are moments like a handful of stars.

Nights when he can't sleep and neither can she. A dance, where he twirls her round and round until her head is spinning and her eyes are sparkling, and she laughs and whispers _thank you. _Above all, that night, that snowy night, when they talk and talk and talk until he decides maybe there is something worth living for after all, and he says _trust me_, and she walks knowingly into a trap because she _does._

And these moments twinkle across the dark stretch of their journey and his journey, until one day, dawn comes.)

* * *

Zelos stands on his balcony, trying to spot a star through the lights of Meltokio. And Raine, always their healer, walks up beside him.

"What," she asks, "are you going to do?"

"Nothing," he says, promptly.

She slaps him across the face with equal efficiency.

"What—?" He asks, snapping his head back, raising a hand to his cheek.

"Wake up," she says, eyes like steel, showing that she won't put up with his nonsense.

And so he takes a step back, and tries to remember that things have _changed_. "I can't, hunny. I can't do that to her. She deserves someone—"

(whole?)

And Raine sighs, because a healer always has to know what she can't heal.

"Do you know," she asks, words razor-to-the-wrist-sharp, "that she will wait forever?"

"Know and hope are different things," he says, looking to the lights like stars. "Maybe I'll wake up one day, and she'll have found her way home."

"She already has," the healer says softly.

* * *

(One day, she leaves and doesn't say goodbye, because she's a clever girl.

(And he's the only one who knows it.))

* * *

The last night is the party, the only the only thing that makes the night bearable. It allows them to forget that everything ends tomorrow.

At some point, she stands there on the balcony, watching the fireworks like shooting stars. The party lights fall on her back, but water gurgles from gardens unseen, pushing out the chatter from the ballroom.

He suspects this is the point where he should know he's way way too drunk. At some point, he'll work on that habit of putting alcohol between him and his emotions.

"What about after?" she asks without even turning, because she's an angel, after all, and they never should have pretended for each other.

"After what?" he asks, walking up beside her, as the fireworks die in the sky.

A half-smile dances on her lips, and her eyes flicker silver with reflected light. "Tomorrow. The journey. After we figure we're alive."

(And here he's so used to being dead)

"Well, we live, of course," He says with his always-easy smile.

But she just looks around him, because the walls were never there for her. She just looks at him, because they met each other on the way down.

"And just how are we supposed to do that?" she asks, and the city—all spread out before them and glowing so, so, infuriatingly bright.

"You," he says, his fingers carefully and fearfully gripping the cold white stone of the railing, "tell me."

(_This breath, this moment, this life right now was never the plan._)

And she looks up to the endless, empty sky. "Somewhere," she says, "there is a way."

(She is looking for a star.

She is looking for hope.

_Colette believes._)

* * *

At one point in that evening, they kissed. But he pulled away, he stopped. He _ran._

And she went on looking, alone.

* * *

The worlds were reunified, and they became heroes. They part, and from that moment on they are legends and not people. But some of their friends resist this, of course, because Raine has no interest in being a legend when she's trying to beat sense into people, and Sheena has no patience for admiration, and Lloyd, of course, will always be more human than human.

But they are Angels, and they are Chosen, and really, they can handle being Ghosts on this new one earth.

So he stays there in Meltokio, trying to come to terms with a splintering self, and she floats around the world, looking for somewhere to belong.

They have to do _something_.

* * *

Zelos is trying very hard not to be bored because this is _important, _really, and this is something he can do about that fire that eats his heart and makes his hands rattle on the hilt of his dagger. He has to do this, because he can't cut out the problems of the world anymore than he can cut out his problems (and trust him, he's tried).

Look at how wonderfully, beautifully responsible he is. Doing his duty for the world, dealing with the church and bearing the burden of being a symbol. Running is funny like that. Who can say if you're running to or away? So he sits there in the throne room, leaning back against the pillar and watching as the king conducts his business. He chimes in occasionally on the authority of the church, or his own authority.

(Some people don't forget that their little band of world saviors _killed _for the sake of their goals.)

Sometimes, it's even fun. He always was good at holding all the cards, and getting to rub them in the faces of some very, very annoying people can't help but be amusing. But it doesn't help. If he has power in those moments, he has always had power and he knows how utterly useless it is. If he feels power in those moments, it only makes things worse, because he wants to take that power and kill. And he can't kill anymore. The only bloodshed battle he fights anymore is against himself.

Only somewhere in his completely composed rumination on rage, Sheena steps into the throne room.

For a moment, and absent glance of hers falls on his, and she stares, just stares for a second, and it's like she never left, like he never watched wisps of pink trailing from a back, disappearing, but then her face sets like stone and he remembers that oh yes, she _left_.

And now she's wondering about him. She's wondering where he went.

(He'd like to tell her that he's wondering the same thing.)

"Honestly, Your Majesty," he says, cutting right through the conversation, "Mizuho has proved their usefulness time and time again. It would be worth our while to concede here," he smiles over at her, in such a heartbreakingly familiar way, that has changed so amazingly much, "in hopes that our partnership will continue to be profitable in the future."

And the king looks like he's got his royal panties in a twist and he narrows his eyes because his cute little spies have no doubt told him that Zelos has done his fair bit of fraternizing with Mizuho in the past, but the king gets a good deal of reports about fraternizing Zelos has done. Besides, Zelos knows full well that he's right.

The surprised look Sheena gives him as negotiations resume is almost grateful.

* * *

And so does she fly, because there's nowhere to land.

Colette sees this world they've made, speaks to its citizens. She passes through Exire, the tiny world above a world, carrying a people that have to decide if they are once again willing to risk. She walks the woods of the elves, who have been shamed by the actions of beings much older and much younger than themselves. She passes through the towns of Sylvarant, which were once her towns, which she could have been a sacrifice for and which could have been a sacrifice for her. She even ends up in Meltokio for a time, but sticks to the slums, hidden behind the palatial towers. And eventually, she comes back to the city in the snow, where the cold can keep everyone away and she can try to figure out how everything changed.

And at nights, when sleep is supposed to come but never does, she wanders its towers and balconies, looking out over this sanctuary, its lights in the night. It doesn't feel real but she doesn't feel real, and so isn't she as home as she'll ever be, in these nights out of Time?

Colette hasn't managed to pray in a long time, not since she found out that the world was a monster, and the gods couldn't fix that since they were monsters too. Not since she learned that the only way anything could get better was if she threw away her fear and start trying to fix things with her own two hands. And she did, she and her friends fixed everything on their very own, because they were Heroes. And before that, she was a Chosen. But they fought their way free of titles, and Colette knows now that the only thing she is is a lost little girl. She is too weak, too sad, to fix any of this.

There is only one power that little girls have. And in those nights, she uses it. She makes a wish. Because wishes are the only things we have left when we run out of belief and of hope.

_Please, _she wishes, _let love follow pain. _

* * *

("If you love her," she says to him, "then maybe you should stop running.")

* * *

She catches him on the way out.

"Why," she asks, "are you still here?"

"You stopped me, of course," Zelos says. "Well, I suppose I could have jumped out the window, but really, the novelty of wings does wear out after a while, and besides, doors are so marvelously convenient."

She glares at him and he waits for the violent demonic banshee he knows and loves so much, only time has changed her, aged her, and little angel boy, you know the world never stays the same.

"Don't be an idiot," she tells him, hands on her hips. "I thought you would have gotten out of here years ago."

"I have work to do," He says, spreading his hands and shrugging. "Don't tell me you weren't impressed by how responsible I was just now, hunny."

"Maybe you think so," she says, "but Tethe'alla doesn't need you holding its hand, not anymore. We made this world to last you know, and we did it right. Isn't it time for you to move on?"

"Onto what, Sheena?" he asks, because he really, just doesn't know what anyone expects of him anymore, except that he isn't _it_. Just that he's very tired of trying to be.

"Like I know," Sheena says. "It's your life. I'm just saying, you know that things aren't getting any better. I suppose you think you never have to grow up, but you still have to live, you know."

And then she leaves again, and he understands with breathtaking clarity how sick he is of being left behind.

"That's not a thank you, hunny!" he shouts after her, but it doesn't matter, she's already gone.

He stands there, in the empty hallway.

* * *

These mistakes we make—

* * *

(And he knows then that this is a test, because if he truly loves, then he will have the power to conquer fear. To move forward, he must follow the way back, back into the very heart of memory, which is of course the very heart of darkness.

(_run!_)

She disappears into the snow, and he keeps looking for the red, waiting for the blood to seep out from behind the door, the closet into which he's swept all his past pain. Hidden by the white, he keeps waiting for her to die like all the rest, because there is a law in this life which states that the price for the future is the pain. With suffering ahead and suffering behind, can she blame him for hiding in his present, this eternal moment that is nothing, nothing at all, just empty endless white, the only place free from red?

And by this he knows that she is not lost but him, that she is falling but she knows where she'll land, because she's known the whole time, because he saw the suffering and felt rage and she felt the suffering and saw sorrow, and knew that her tears could heal the world, because duty for her meant healing, and so beauty and pain became one and the same, and they know now there are two deities to this world, Mithos and Martel, and one was a monster and the other was an angel, and it was never really clear which was which.

And he flies on his own wings (_walk on your own two feet_) until the air turns cold and he goes cold, knowing that all along, this hasn't meant a thing. He knows that all along he's not been cut. If he's shattered, it's how he has to be. No, that moment wasn't the breaking but the opening, the moment when his eyes and the cold sky became the same, and he learned of the red and the white, and the monster curled in his chest and began to roar roar roar, and the journey since was not to heal but to survive, and before he could understand the truth that fell into his lap he had to not killed by it.

But now he understands what she was telling him all along.

_He will live_.

He has his After, and now he has to live it.)

His boots touch down on the snow, and he looks up at the town of Flanoir. Forward he walks, through his test of irony.

The white night sits thick on the city, and he passes right past the bar, overflowing with firelight and laughter. He feels the chill of the air, but not really, because cold no longer hurts him.

"Where are you?" he whispers to himself, looking over the silent city, searching for his angel.

(All these memories, stretching back through the years. And years don't grow, but age, and under the weight of memories, can't be crushed. All this wonder and pain, stealing his breath away.)

And then he sees the cathedral, tribute to the girl Goddess who became real, and a slight silhouette against the stained glass. And he smiles, a slight curving in a frozen face. The emotion that's been broken, and the little things that mean so much. Up the frozen steps to the balcony, all of the snowy city spread out before them.

She's just watching, watching the unmoving city, eternity unending, because they have their eternity, and the choice whether or not to live it.

Words will change everything.

"Hello, hunny," he says.

(And there: what he's been waiting for. Blood everywhere. And here's the war, finally out there to fight.)

She whirls in white and blond, and her eyes are so comically round and surprised. She looks like she did all those years ago, back when she was innocent and whole, when she was just a naïve little girl who thought that she could _save the world_ just by giving up her one little life, and he thought she was _so funny _because he knew better, didn't he?

"Zelos," she breathes, and he sees then the tightness in her lips, the furrow in her eyebrows, and before, Before—this is After.

"Zelos," she repeats, like a broken dream, and the betrayed heart, and if this isn't something that heals, then where's room for forgiveness? "And what in Martel's name are you doing here?"

"Can't I visit you?" He says. "It's been a while."

"Yes," she says, her eyes narrowed. "It has been a very long while."

(And they are the two who understand that their struggle to fix the world's wounds really was just about healing their own hearts, their own scars. Because the world moves, and they understand that they are the next generation of those outside time, and their frozen bodies have made for frozen hearts. Oh no, time doesn't heal.)

He walks up next to her, watching the fog of lights through the white. And no, there will be no stars here. He doesn't touch the snow covered railing.

(Her hands clench into it, though. She doesn't wear gloves. Her fingers, white as snow.)

"This world we built," he says, living a memory and yet clearheaded, "I didn't think it would survive. We put so much into it, and yet I didn't believe in it."

"I know you didn't," she says, looking back to the city.

"Did you?" he asks.

She pauses, turning her face up to the sky, and snow falls over her eyes.

"Would you believe that I can't remember?" She says, and she smiles, small and sad and soft, and absolutely heartstoppingly beautiful.

(Because damn it all, she's still just a stupid little girl, and she doesn't know anymore.)

And the whispers from nightmares, clawing him down because this is all his fault, and he knows knows knows that he just exists to hurt, and because of course he should never have been here, but he is, he is, he is, and he doesn't understand it, and he spent years and years and years waiting to disappear but he didn't, he's still alive somehow and now she's in front of him and _this isn't getting better, _which is the whole point of After. They have forever, and that's it.

He breathes in the cold air as she waits.

"I came here because I had to tell you," he forces words through frozen lips, "to tell you that I'm sorry."

For a second she keeps smiling. Then-

He dodges the chakram purely on instinct, and she catches it deftly as it returns to her.

"If that's all you had to say," she says like snow, "You should go. Now."

(They always forget that Colette was willing to kill (herself) to save Sylvarant.)

He really just feels like apologizing again. Which, he imagines, is how Colette felt a lot of the time. "I—back then—"

"Stop," she says.

"It's just—" he says, vainly, because he was supposed to do this right and she was supposed to be happy and he was supposed to stop messing this up-

"If you don't stop," she says.

"I was falling, Colette!" he shouts, breaking through the ice. "How could I have lived with myself if I took you with me?"

"Because," she says over the glint of a steely chakram. "That's what I wanted."

And he really thinks she might kill him and he might deserve it. He's helpless and hopeless, and all he has left are words.

"Maybe," he says, and this time, he does not look away, "I just cared about you too much."

And that does it, and she bursts into tears, and slides down into the snow, white on white, and tears fall clear, and she pulls him right down with her.

(And no she's not okay, she's never been okay, and what did you_ think_?)

"You idiot," she says through sniffles. "You never could have broken me."

(And he made her snow and he made her sacred, which is the very thing she didn't need and he _should have known better_.)

"But I did," he says.

"Then fix it," she says.

And so he does. He puts his hand out, and pulls them both into the white sky.

* * *

—they're _okay_.

* * *

The branches of the mana tree spread overhead, a living sky in glade for those who can fly. And yet it reaches out for _everyone_.

It is a calming place.

"The tree feels like it's doing well," Colette says, opening her eyes and smiling. She leans back until she feels bark, and the trunk is strong.

"It is," says Mana, Martel, standing beside her and looking out at the world. "And you?"

"I'm doing well," Colette says, as the sky rises before, endless blue. She's fallen in love with it, this sky that ties everyone and everything together.

(The answer is, of course, the whole world. The answer is, of course, anything.)

"Yeah," Colette says. "I'll be alright."

* * *

There's something called forgiveness, and once upon a time, it was all her power.

The Goddess wasn't real, but she is. The little angel girl. And if the Goddess wasn't around to forgive the world, well, Colette has already done that.

And their lives, since the start of After, have been sharp and strangled, and no one ever said that salvation meant the end of suffering.

Everything begins the moment when she can forgive them both—him for not being ready, and herself for the same.

And down falls the snow, like the stars they had ceased to believe in. And they've learned that miracles can't happen, so what is this? They have learned that miracles can't happen, and so they'll have to take this one step at a time. And they will struggle and they will fight, but they have won their After and the time has come to live it.

They fly through, the snow falling all around them. And they say it's the hardest part, but not even angels can fall forever.


End file.
